M4 Rev, M51 review/guide.

Both are tier 8 French mediums that have full MM, so they face tier X. They both have 390m view range and 750m signal range. The hull is the same as that found on the mid tier Shermans and the armour protection is about as useful as wet paper. Mobility wise they are similar to their mid tier variants, topping out at around 40kph cand climbing hills well, but they aren't suited to circling other tanks due to the reload time, doing so gets you killed. However the awful armour and average mobility isn't the appeal of the tank..

The 390 avg dmg 105mm gun is. The gun gets a very nice -10 degrees of gun depression, and fires APCR as standard, meaning the shell velocity is amazing. The average pen is 200 which is a little low compared to the other tier 8 premium mediums, and the HEAT has an average 250mm of pen, which again is beaten by some other tier 8 mediums.

However this gun does 390 avg dmg, compared to their 220-240-ish averages. With that in mind, i try to compare it to guns like the Soviet D-25t that is equipped on their hard hitting heavies, that does similar damage, with far worse handling, and only gets 175mm pen on the AP and 217mm on the premium shell. By comparison the Sherman has great pen and handling stats, on a mobile platform.

The M4 Rev/M51 has an aiming time of 2.4 and accuracy of .35, which isn't bad at all for the gun and with rammer and BiA the reload is around 10 seconds. This reload, coupled with the large size and complete lack of armour, means the tank is a support tank, frontline combat is not advised. There's a bonus to the 10 second reload, it's the same amount of time that it takes for you to become undetected after firing, so unlike the mid tier shermans you aren't having to stay exposed to do damage. You fire, get to cover, wait patiently, end up undetected, then fire again. Be careful though..

Reds like to focus on the tank as it's an easy pen, and i've had E-75s happily let greens shoot it in the side whilst it stares at my last known position, just sitting there so it can fire when it next sees me. This is frustrating yet can also be useful, as you can have a direct role in taking out an enemy tank without even firing a shot. If you do get hit, expect to lose a module or crew member. This tank does not hold up well under enemy fire.

With that in mind, be patient. Just because you have a shell loaded, doesn't mean you should take a shot if there is a high possibility that you will get hit doing so. Choose your targets carefully. Only engage distracted targets. You don't want to be in a fight where you have an enemies full attention. Due to that, i run the tank with rammer, vert stabs and optics and i try to keep a bit of distance between myself and the reds. You could say a light tank playstyle works well, engage distracted targets at range, then in the late stages of the game, go hunting, the only diffence being you will use alpha instead of dpm to kill the remaining tanks.

I've found this tactic works well, and although i sometimes only get 6 shots in and feel like it was a bad game, 6 shots gets you over 2k dmg with this tank which exceeds the 1750 expected damage for purple.

One last thing, as the premium shell is HEAT, only use it against flat, un-spaced armour or it's useless. I tend to aim for shots through enemy tanks drive wheels with AP over using HEAT. It comes in use against things like KV-4s, T28s, E4s etc though. Just don't try to engage an E-75 or E-100 frontally, regardless of ammo choice, you will die.